So what do you do?

Pope Benedict and Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, both octogenarians, joked about their age in a brief meeting on Wednesday and then Castro popped the question: so what do you do?

Sure, Fidel Castro kept the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba buried under his cigar ash for decades, shutting down its schools, exiling priests and declaring the Communist island an atheist state until the 1990s. But it’s likely Castro also admires the Vatican in a sad way: like him, the Pope is an autocrat who doesn’t tolerate dissent, although the papacy a long time ago quit throwing dissidents behind bars — a habit Havana still can’t shake. So it’s not so surprising that the ailing, 85-year-old Fidel, who handed Cuba’s presidency to his younger brother Raúl six years ago, asked the 84-year-old Pope Benedict XVI for a private audience as the last order of business on His Holiness’ three-day visit to Cuba, which ended March 28. Read  more